Studying your deck

For getting to know a deck in depth, I strongly recommand the Exercises in Alison Cross book Tarot Kaizen. The whole point of the book is to get to know a deck really well, to dig deep. Plus, the exercises are fun, and it does not take a long time each day.

For choosing wich deck to start with, I suggest doing the first two exercises of the book with all of your decks. It can take you about 15 mn for each deck, and it will really help you consider wich deck you want to dig in right now, and wich deck will be better if you let it simmer a while longer before getting into it.

The fact that some decks have no LWB is usually not a problem for me, since I mostly do not use LWB nor companion books, exept when the companion book brings something really new (like the Tarot of Prague companion book wich bring a lot of additional information about the city of Prague for example). Or when a card derives so strongly from traditional interpretation, that I have difficulty making out what it tells me and need to read what the artist intended, to fully understand the card (that is the case for a few cards from the Chrysalis tarot, for example. I suppose it would be the case with the Mary-El tarot also, though this deck is so fully different than a traditional deck, that you could also read it like an oracle, without LWB, just trusting your intuition)

By the way, the Tarot Kaizen book will help you a lot with understanding the meaning of the cards from any deck, with or without LWB. The Tarot Kaizen workbook is really great in helping to fully understand a deck.

Also, what is super interesting to do when you have several decks at your disposal, is to compare the same card from different decks. For me, this has really deepens my understanding of cards. So that also can help you, especially if there is a deck that is a little more difficult to understand and you dont have the relevant LWB. Compare the card with the same cards from other decks, eventually read some general book knowledge about the card in question (from both RWS and Thoth points of view), and you will gain a lot of useful information and understanding.

I hope you are having a blast with your 16 decks ! Enjoy !

I think comparing cards from different decks is really good. I do that too and it really helps understanding the cards better.

I hadn't thought about displaying different versions of the same card... But I'm going to! Excellent idea! Maybe I'll try the little easels.... I can get them here at the hardware store. (Strange item to carry at the hardware store, right?)

I currently have 16 decks and one more on its way. When I get my hands on a new deck, I love going in depth to "get to know" them, to understand their themes etc.
However, in my excitement, I have purchased too many decks at once and now, I face the problem of deciding which one to study first

I will definitely figure my way out of that, but what I really want to know is: How long does it take to study a deck?
And also, how do you know if you've studied "everything"?

* "Everything" <-- I put quotation marks because we all know that it's not possible to really know everything, down to the artist's feelings or the writer's thoughts etc.
Just that feeling of having x-rayed / explored the deck from top to bottom and into every corner of each card

If you love studying decks, I'm with you there that it's best to study them one at a time and only move on to the next when you feel you have mastered the previous one well enough.

This is my suggestion on how to decide which ones to study first. I would take a sheet of paper and make a list of all the 16 (or 17) decks. Number them in order, from 1 to 16 (or 17). Take the Majors 1-16 (or 17) out of your deck and ask the cards which order it would be best for you to study them. Then pull cards and do the decks in the exact order that comes up. The cards can tell you the more effective way for you to study them.

I don't think anyone can tell you how long it takes to study a deck. That varies from person to person, and even from deck to deck. Some decks may take longer than others. But I would say you have more than one years work (or play )there most likely already. You know when you have studied it enough, like anything else in Tarot by your intuition. Listen in inside and your heart will tell you. When it feels like enough, it is. If you feel you need more, then you do.

Most decks, follow either the RWS, Thoth, or Marseille systems to varying degrees, and if you're great at the three learning new decks won't be so difficult. Other decks like the Crysalis, Didactic, and Mary-El are their very own systems, so they take longer to learn than usual.

In my case, if I'm not so busy at work I can take at the very least two weeks to at most three months to becone competent in using a specific deck.

That's true too. Not all decks us the same system. I had a lot of fun (read confusion) learning my first deck as it was Thoth-based. And all the literature I was reading was for RWS decks. I had never even heard of the Thoth at the time, but parts of the info were not meshing for me. Took a while to learn for that reason.

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